


What Once Was Lost

by blcwriter



Category: Teen Wolf (TV), Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Companions, Crossover, Deaton is a cryptic mentor, Gen, Grove-Born Lydia, Herald-Mage Stiles, Heralds, Mages, Stydia sass is forever, Trainee Stiles, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Tumblr Prompt, Wolfbrothers are like Hawkbrothers except kind of not, idefk, loosey-goosey with the Valdemar canon, non-graphic battle sequence, you should google image check wyrsa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-13
Updated: 2013-06-13
Packaged: 2017-12-14 20:14:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/840934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blcwriter/pseuds/blcwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Herald-Archivist-Engineer-Mage-Trainee Stiles Stilinski was worried, at the start of his Internship with his cryptic mentor Deaton, that he'd ride the most boring Circuit ever to boring, even with his glorious Grove-Born companion Lydia to sass him through all the dull parts.</p><p>One magical Gate trip straight into a lost clan's territory and a new mage war, boy, was he wrong.  This was going to be awesome.  He was going to have the best Circuit report to turn in ever, assuming the lost wolf clan they'd only just rediscovered and barely allied themselves with, not to mention the wyrsa and the evil mages and the mages on his side that he might annoy didn't all kill him first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Once Was Lost

**Author's Note:**

> A 100 followers prompt at my tumblr from chocolate_alchemy, first posted [here,](http://lettersfromeleanorrigby.tumblr.com/post/52795486050/chocolate-alchemys-untitled-teen-wolf-valdemar-100) because we bweed a while ago about the glorious canonical gay relationships of Mercedes’ Lackey’s various Valdemar series from when we were (much) younger, and how awesome it would be in the Teen Wolf world, and now, here we are.
> 
> If you don’t know what wyrsa are you should probably Google an image and then read all the Vanyel books at the very least. This also comes with heavy doses of all the Lydia & Stiles sass forever. Also WOLFBROTHERS and not the Derek & Scott kind (well, not in the TW fanon way), and some Valdemar-specific canon references you can probably flub through.

_Just because he’s a cryptic bastard doesn’t mean he’s not right,_ Lydia said, flicking one ear backward in disapproval at Stiles’ prolonged mental disparagement of his Mentor. Deaton rode on ahead, back erect, impervious in his Whites. Just in case, Stiles tightened all of his shields, though he was pretty sure Deaton observed appropriate shield protocols and didn’t snoop unless death was on the line. Make that 40% sure. Stiles needed to finish reading that text on body linguistics from Karse to bring his certainty back up to at least 50%. 

Lydia’s mane shook, free and untangled, in time with her trot, her hooves chiming against the surface of the Road as Stiles shook his head own head in disgust at the fact that among other things, Deaton hadn’t let him stop to chip off a bit of the material from the edge yet for analysis, later, whenever, because still, even with the Mages back and things settling down, no one had figured out how to rebuild the Road.

 _Just because you can hear all my thoughts doesn’t mean you should always feel free to comment. Rude,_ Stiles thought back.

Sometimes this Companion shit wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, even if Lydia was the third Grove-Born to appear in Stiles’ lifetime. Not that he wasn’t honored, or that he thought she was wrong. Stiles had read, okay, and if Grove-Born appeared, much less Chosen him, apparently Serious Things were going to be afoot— and were apparently going to involve lots of engineering and research?— because why the hell else were the Companions likely to choose one of the Blues, even one, connected like, Stiles, to the head of the Army? Because otherwise, they would have just Chosen his dad.

 _If we’d wanted your father, we’d have sent him a Companion._ Lydia flicked an ear forward again, because she was a thought-listening snoop, but sometimes it paid off and she followed Stiles’ weird chains of thought and confirmed some or other suspicion that only set Stiles thinking more. Like why they were headed to Hawkbrothers territory when that was essentially settled territory these days, and Stiles’ studies in law and diplomacy along with mechanical structures and ancient magical systems wouldn’t really be needed. What? He had diverse interests, okay? He didn’t want his internship to be all boring Circuits and the routine kind of stuff he’d already done.

 _We’re not staying with the Hawkbrothers long,_ Lydia confirmed. Yeah. Okay. Sometimes having a Companion was awesome. He pulled a caramel apple he’d put a teensy little preserving spell on and leant down to hand it over just at Lydia turned her head back to bite it precisely in half.

 _I’ll have the other half later, now put that away or Morrell will think I’ve been telling you more than I ought,_ Lydia snarked. Convenient, to be able to chew and mindspeak at the same time.

 _You’re the best, most gorgeous Companion to ever,_ Stiles thought, then reached back into his bag to pull out that text.

 _Of course I am,_ Lydia said, her mental tone smug. _Now read that text aloud, your glottal stops are abhorrent._

“Abhorrent,” Stiles said aloud, gargling the rs on purpose.

Deaton flicked a look over his shoulder, apparently decided that Stiles wasn’t talking to him, and then shrugged, nonchalant and accepting of his clear thought that he’d gotten saddled with the worst Herald-Archivist-Engineer-Mage-Trainee ever, then went back to sweeping his judgmental gaze over the trees. He was probably holding them up against the standard of some trees from his home across the seas from—wherever he refused to draw the maps of except for the King and Queen and their heralds, but—still. He was definitely judging the trees. Fine with Stiles. Stiles had stuff to learn, and a Horse with a capital H to correct his glottals.

Life was just grand. Why couldn’t Stiles have at least gotten a crazy-ass mentor like Finstock? He heard that courier was totally batshit. That would have been cool.

—

Oh, my gods, life was not grand.

“You didn’t tell me that not stopping long with the Hawkbrothers meant because we were gating into a war zone!” Okay, maybe his yell was a little less manly and a little more shrill, but Lydia would still be able to lodge his protest with whatever gods were still listening.

Stiles concentrated and threw the biggest fireball he could, ducking up from his crouch on Lydia’s back to toss it at the wyrsa that was seething toward Deaton while he and Morell did something way more complicated with the ley lines that Stiles could feel was going to be major.

That they’d gated right into the scene of a battle in the most magic-twisted territory Stiles had ever encountered—and he’d seen a few, mmkay, he was kind of handy at helping make Heartstones despite his young age, it was the mechanical thing—and that there seemed to be actual, giant, Companion-sized wolves fighting the wyrsa, a small, human girl at the center of their seethe, terrified and obviously in the midst of being carried away when the wolves—and now, Deaton and Stiles and Lydia and Morrell had found them.

He reached again for the lines, pulled more power and threw some more fire, each time ducking and shielding the best that he could as Lydia kicked, bit, and attacked, because Stiles was decent at offensive magics but he was slow, and he didn’t know the magical ley here.

The biggest wolf, the one with red eyes and a coat as black as midnight, was clawing his way toward the girl, his snarls a fierce, basso counterpoint to the high, keening snarls of the wyrsa.

The enemy of a wyrsa is my friend, Stiles thought, trying not to hit any wolves and direct his fireballs as well as he could. “Hey, red-eyes, duck!” he yelled, directing his biggest missile yet. “Shield the girl!”

The big wolf turned and looked at Stiles for just a second and then surged out of the way even as Stiles could feel the gate opening again, and that’s what Deaton must have been doing, but Stiles didn’t have any time for any of that—he just cast the fireball, concentrating on making it—sticky and shielded so it clung to whatever it touched, so that if he could hit a big mass of wyrsa, at least he could be sure they’d burn.

At least that was the good part about magic sometimes not following rules. He could will something and make it happen.

He was just whooping with joy at the ten wyrsa who went down in response to his latest firebomb to feel—poisoned claws rake up his side even as a cavalry unit poured through the Gate, swords flashing and a Journeyman Mage wielding her own arrows and fire, oh, shit, that was cool, at the front as the young cavalry commander, dark-haired, crooked-jawed, maybe Stiles’ age, slashed and called his unit to battle, words lost to the din around Stiles.

 _Stiles,_ Lydia called, and Stiles patted her absently, before turning his sight inward again. The lines here were twisted and thin, sluggish, glowed green and made him feel sick when he pulled the energy from them…

 _Stiles,_ Lydia said again, more insistent this time, but she loved to interrupt him when he was ‘casting, so he ignored her…

—

When he woke up, it was to a stiffness in his side that felt mostly Healed.

“You’re awake,” said the voice. Male. Speaking lightly-accented trade tongue.

Stiles forced himself up onto an elbow, turning to see who had spoken. He blinked at his surroundings—it looked like one of the Northern longhouses he’d read of in the oldest, most moldery scrolls--dark logs and spackle and leaves, almost like some kind of den, but there was also the sort of a feel of a Vale about it—he extended his senses and… nearly passed out.

“Don’t try and connect with the Heartstone,” the voice said, but then there was someone at his elbow, pushing him back into the cot full of furs as he took a seat on the edge of its frame. “It’s broken.”

The expression on the speaker’s—gaunt, handsome, dark-haired, heterochromatic-eyed—face— _You’re awake half a minute and waxing poetic, I’m glad you’re okay,_ Lydia droned, and that was a relief, she was okay—was ironic, like _of course_ Stiles should know, gating into unknown territory and being a badass in a battle with wyrsa and wolves and had Stiles mentioned that Deaton was a cryptic bastard—not to reach out to the nearest heartstone to try to re-up his reserves.

“He is cryptic,” the man agreed, and oh, stones, had Stiles said that aloud?

The man huffed. “Wyrsa poison affects mages differently.” He shoved Stiles, not ungently, but firm, still, back into the cot, then rearranged some of the furs around Stiles' shoulders. It was colder up here, even with summer. “You need to rest, still.”

“But. Where are we? What was happening? Where are the wolves? Is the girl okay? Oh, my gods, tell me at least we saved the girl.”

The man’s eyes flashed red at Stiles’ babble, just like that biggest wolf-- and just like that, Stiles remembered.

A scroll, one in the Restricted part of the library, one he wasn’t supposed to have read, but one that had come to Haven at some point with Herald-Mage Elspeth, one that was bespelled—except that bespelled objects were kind on one of the first things Stiles had learned to detect and undo...

“You’re one of the lost clans. The Wolfbrothers. The ones who… stones, you merge with your bond-kin.”

If he felt a little awed, well, sue him, it wouldn’t hold up in courts, you couldn’t sue feelings.

The man rolled his eyes, pulling his hand back from where he’d pushed Stiles into the bedding.

“Deaton did say you were quick. Yes, Stiles, we’re the Wolfbrothers, and your fool of a mentor brought you and your damned holy horses into the middle of a fairly major mage war. In the middle of one of the Unhealed territories. I don’t know what he was thinking.”

Stiles grinned. Mage wars? Unhealed territories? Lost Hawkbrother clans? This internship was going to be _awesome._

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I have no idea. I kind of feel like this is it because otherwise I'll have to re-read Arrows of the Queen, the Vanyel series, and the Mage Wars series, at least, and that's like, a 9 book research commitment to bone up on canon. For a crossover of indeterminate length.


End file.
